


Milady

by dabs_into_oblivion



Series: gendrya [10]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-12 00:03:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20162359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dabs_into_oblivion/pseuds/dabs_into_oblivion
Summary: Gendry tells Jon about "Arry." Jon tells Gendry about his little sister.





	Milady

**Author's Note:**

> i will never be tired of gendrya

They're eating supper, the sun slowly dipping below the horizon, when Gendry says around a mouthful of stew, "I almost went to the Wall, once."

Jon glances sidelong at him, taking a bite of bread. "That so?"

"Aye." Gendry sets his bowl down. "I was on the run from soldiers who thought I looked a little too much like King Robert. Turns out they were right." He chuckles, takes a drink of ale. "Anyway, I met a girl on the way."

Jon pauses with his spoon halfway to his mouth. "A girl? For the Watch?"

Gendry laughs at the look on his face. "Oh, she had her hair shorn and was dressed like a boy, but you could tell something was off about her. She had one of the finest little swords I'd ever seen, looked just like a needle, and she wasn't just any girl, she was highborn."

Jon finds his throat closing. "What was her name?"

"To everyone else she was Arry, but she told me her name was Arya Stark of Winterfell."

Jon chokes on air. Breathes. "What happened to her?"

Gendry's face falls. "Last I saw of her she was with the Brotherhood without Banners. Man called Clegane was with them as well. One way or another they wanted to ransom her, get the Starks to give them a chest or two of gold." He pauses, then, "I was taken to Stannis by a red priestess. She . . . she put leeches on me, some kind of magic."

Jon nods. "I may know the priestess. So you knew Arya? For how long?"

"A little while." Gendry studies his tankard. "Didn't want to get too close, her being a lady and all, but she had an easy way about her, for all her bluster and overconfidence. She even offered me a place at Winterfell."

"Aye, that's Arya." Both men smile. The shadows are long now; there's almost no sunlight left. Jon scrapes the last of the stew out of his bowl and says, "You loved her." It isn't a question.

Gendry takes a moment to answer. "Aye, I did." He scuffs his foot on the sand. "She was a child, and I was only half grown myself, so I didn't feel much for her besides what I might have felt for a sibling, or a very good friend . . . course I'd never had either, before, so she was special to me." His voice drops, melts into something infinitely tender. "Night before I was taken away, she told me she would be my family."

Jon looks at him sharply. "And you said?"

Gendry shrugs. "What else? I said she'd always be milady."

"That's where you're wrong, friend." Jon stands, claps his companion on the back. Gendry rises as well, his food forgotten, and they begin to walk back into the mines. Jon continues, "Arya is a lady by blood, but she has never been content merely filling that role. She hates it. She'd marry, I expect, if she could choose and if she had control over herself even as a wife." He pauses. "She doesn't like being owned or being worshipped. She just wants to be a person."

Gendry is silent for several hundred paces. Then, as they reach their destination, he says softly, "If she's alive, I will find her, and I will be her family."

In the darkness behind him, Jon smiles.

\----------------

She isn't standing next to Sansa when Jon rides into Winterfell. She's in her room, rereading the raven he sent only days earlier:

"Arya,

"I have with me an old friend of yours, a full-grown bull now, and perhaps a little less stupid. Find him in the forge when I arrive. He's missed you.

"--Jon"

She sets the raven down, feeling hot. She checks herself in the mirror -- to make sure her armor is on straight, she tells herself. It wouldn't do to show up in front of Gendry looking like a child playing at war. Anyway, it might not be him. And he didn't want her when he left.

She's in the back of the forge when the smiths come in, noisy, clanging, lighting things on fire and taking off their jackets and oh gods there he is and he has even _more _muscles than he used to and --

She pushes forward, off the wall, and strides forward with a confidence she doesn't feel. "Your hair's gone."

He looks up, then looks again, and his face is like a sunrise. She tries not to think too hard about it, tries to smile, ends up maybe almost crying, and he starts forward but then stops. She looks at him and looks and looks and he looks back, at her armor and her sword and her dagger and gods why did she wear all of this, he doesn't care about any of it --

"Still got your sword," he says, and she almost bursts. She nods.

"Could make you a dagger to match," he says, stepping around the worktable. "A bow as well -- Jon says you're a fine archer."

"I didn't --" she whispers. Swallows the massive lump in her throat. Tries again. "I didn't mean to scare you, the night before . . ." She's messing this up so badly she may have to turn and run. She, who wears the faces of the people she kills. She breathes. "I didn't want you to go."

His face shifts, softens. "You think I left because of you?"

She shakes her head. "No. Yes. Maybe. I --" He's looking at her so tenderly that she's losing her ability to breathe. He can't --

He looks at the floor, then back at her. "You're taller." He smiles, a real smile.

She steps forward once, twice. "You're stronger. Look at you!" He looks like he could snap her in half. Of course, she could bend him so many ways he'd beg for mercy, but that's neither here nor there . . .

He chuckles. "Aye, did a fair bit of rowing, and then I've been helping your brother mine dragonglass."

She nods. "I'd love a bow, it's been ages since I've had one, but I already have a dagger." She draws it and offers it to him, hilt first.

He tilts it, letting the blade catch the light. "You keep your weapons clean, milady."

She has to keep herself from sobbing. "Don't call me that."

He smirks down at her. "As milady commands."

She almost shoves him, just as she did that time before. She moves close, like she's going to shove him, but his hands move like lightning, setting the dagger down on the workbench and coming to rest ever so gently on her shoulders. She wonders what he'd do if she snaked her arms around his waist. The thought makes her shiver. She's supposed to be an assassin, devoted only to her family. A tiny corner of her whispers, _But Gendry is your family._

She takes in a deep, shaky breath. "Have you seen them?" When he quirks an eyebrow at her, she elaborates. "What we're fighting. The army of the dead."

He glances away from her before replying, "Aye, I've seen them. Killed some. They're not like anything you've seen, Arya. They're death."

She steps closer, into his space, and his arms curl around her protectively. Her mind whispers, _how many girls has he held this way?_ but she dismisses the thought. She tilts her face up to his and murmurs, "I know death. Death has many faces. I've borrowed some. Death will always come, but there are ways for us to defeat it, for a time."

She isn't sure who starts it, but one moment his stormy eyes are on hers and the next moment they're kissing. She leans into him, letting her arms slide around his waist, pulling him closer. He gasps into her mouth, and she pulls back to see if he's okay.

He cups her face in one hand. "Arya, I need you to know something. I'm King Robert's bastard."

She feels as though her world is spinning. She leans into him, trusting that he has more to say. He does. 

"I don't want the crown," he's saying. "I don't even know if I want Storm's End. I don't think I'd be a very good lord." His eyes are searching her face. "I know someone who isn't a lady or a lord, and I think she'd be much better than me at running a castle, and if she consented to go with me to Storm's End, I'd take the castle."

She hesitates. "Would she be your family?"

"Aye," says Gendry firmly. "Whatever she wants that to mean."

She wants to cry. She wants to kiss him. She does both.


End file.
